3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2012

January 22, 2012
Homily by Fr. John De Celles
St. Raymond of Peñafort, Springfield, Va.

Today, is the 39th anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court’s decision
in Roe v. Wade, establishing the right to abortion in our country.
To me, that day seems to be the most terrible day in American History,
as since then over 3000 innocent Americans have been killed every day
by abortions,
over 1.3 million a year, for a total of over 50 million dead since 1973.

But even as horrible as that death toll is,
we can’t forget that Roe v. Wade had other consequences as well
—consequences that slowly but surely have been eating away
at the moral and legal fiber of our nation and culture.

Of course, we cannot forget the consequence of
abortion’s devastating effect on women.
Especially the women who have been lied to and told,
“it’s okay, it’s just a formless clump of cells.”
But deep inside they know, or come to know as years pass,
the truth of what they’ve done.
These are the 2nd victims of abortion, but they are ignored and ridiculed
for expressing their pain and feelings of guilt.
We must not forget them, and we must do everything we can to help them heal,
and to make sure that the evil of abortion
will not continue to plague future generations of women.

But the consequences of Roe/Wade go beyond even that.
Because the Court’s decision to establish a constitutional right to abortion
has been like a virus injected into the body politic
slowly destroying every other constitutional right,
and the freedom that is the life’s blood of our great nation.

You see, there can not be any human rights
if human beings don’t have a right to life.
If you’re not alive, you have no rights at all.
What good is the right to vote, or freedom of speech
if someone else has the right to kill you before you can vote or speak?

This is why, in 1776 when Virginian Thomas Jefferson
wrote the Declaration of Independence
the only rights he felt it necessary to list were the most fundamental:
“the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
—with the right to life being first.

Now, some point out that 15 Years later,
when fellow Virginian James Madison spearheaded
the ratification of the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution,
it made no mention of a specific right to life, liberty or pursuit of happiness.
But that was because those rights were so well established already
—in so many places, including the Declaration of Independence—
that they were presumed as the foundation of the Bill of Rights.
Does anyone honestly think the founders changed their minds
between 1776 and 1791?
“Well, we need to protect the right to a speedy trial,
but forget the right to not to be killed.”

Now, some of you may be saying, Father,
this is supposed to be a Catholic homily, not in a U.S. government lesson.
True enough.
So let’s focus on Catholic moral teaching.
And that is this:
no government on earth has the right to deny
the fundamental human right to life.
And if they do deny the right to life,
they deny every other human right that flows from being alive.

Hmmm…
It seems that sometimes Catholic morals and government laws overlap.
And necessarily so.

“Careful Father, remember the separation of Church and state.”
Okay, let’s remember the separation of Church and state.
And let’s begin by considering what Pope Benedict said in Rome
just this past Thursday
to a group of American bishops, including Bishop Loverde:
“The legitimate separation of Church and State
cannot be taken to mean
that the Church must be silent on certain issues….”
Now, when most of us think of the separation between church and state
most of us think of the Bill of Rights.
So I guess I have to go back to the constitution again.
Here’s what it says:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
Notice, it does not say anything about
the church, or priests, keeping out of the affairs of the state;
it’s not about protecting the government from the church,
but protecting the individual’s right
to belong to the religion he or she chooses
and to practice that religion freely
—it’s a protection of the individual and religion from the government.

Most people never notice, that among all the rights listed in the Constitution,
this right to freely choose and practice our religion
is THE VERY FIRST RIGHT mentioned,
in the very first words of the very First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
And this no accident.
In 1776, just a few months before Jefferson wrote
the U.S. Declaration of Independence,
George Mason and James Madison
wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights.
And while Mason was its primary author,
Madison’s contribution was the article on freedom of religion,
which Mason put as the very last right in the long list.
But 11 years later when Madison proposed the U.S. Bill of Rights in 1791,
he deliberately moved it from last to first.

And rightly so.
Because the freedom of religion is essential to the freedom of thought,
the freedom to decide for oneself what one believes
to be true, right and good.
How can we defend any rights if we don’t have that right.
And how can we defend any rights as being given to us from God himself,
as the Declaration of Independence states,
unless we have a right to believe in God as we sees fit.

But as I said earlier, without the right to life,
there are no other rights, no liberties.
So that when someone embraces a theory of man and society
that rejects the right to life,
that system of thought makes all other rights and liberties
not fundamental, natural or God-given,
but simply invented by political expediency and political power.
And when those in power find that the exercise of a certain right or freedom
is not politically expedient to their political agenda,
they will dismiss that “freedom” or “right,”
just as quickly as they dismiss the right of an innocent unborn baby to live.

All this brings us to something that happened on just 2 days ago,
as the news reported that our president,
who has notoriously rejected the right to life of unborn babies,
called Cardinal-elect Timothy Dolan,
Archbishop of New York
and President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops,
to give him some very bad news.
That is, that federal regulations related to his new health care plan
will definitely require the Catholic Church in America
to pay for health care insurance, for the vast majority of its employees,
that will cover contraception – including drugs that cause abortion –
and sterilization.
A few Catholic entities like parishes, the bishop’s curia,
and maybe Catholic elementary and high schools
will be exempt.
But not Catholic colleges, or hospitals,
and not Catholic Charities,
or virtually any other Catholic group or institution.

Any Catholic knows, and any politician who’s breathing knows,
that this law is repugnant to the moral teachings of Catholicism.
And yet the president will attempt—attempt—to force us to comply,
and so has directly and willfully
dismissed our constitutional and human right to freedom of religion.

And this just a week after the Supreme Court unanimously held
that the first amendment broadly prohibits the government
from interfering in the hiring practices of churches.
The court ruled:
“The present case….concerns government interference
with an internal church decision
that affects the faith and mission of the church itself.”

I’m no lawyer, and this regulation isn’t about hiring anyone,
but who in their right mind would argue
that hospitals and colleges and assisting the poor
are not part of “the mission of the church itself”?

Apparently the president and his administration would.

Of course the administration will deny this.
They’ll say, as they have over and over again, that they completely support
the “freedom to worship.”
But the thing is, as Pope Benedict told the Bishops on Thursday,
we can’t allow governments to
“reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship…”
“Worship” is not what the 1st amendment is about
—worship is going to Mass,
and the administration doesn’t have a problem with that:
“just go pray and leave us alone.”
But exercise of religion is actually practicing the tenets,
putting faith into action.
In other words, the work of Catholic hospitals, charities etc.
—the very organizations the administration is attacking.

Is this intended as a direct assault on the Catholic Church?
Was it aimed to punish the Bishops and faithful Catholics
for their opposition to abortion
—especially as it comes out just 2 days before
the anniversary of Roe v Wade?
Or is it retribution for our defiance of the administration’s relentless promotion
of the gay agenda and sexual promiscuity?
You may disagree, but at the very least it looks awfully suspicious.

In any case, just as they tossed out the most fundamental right to life,
now they have thrown out the first right that flows from it.
And if they can so easily cast aside
the first right recognized in the First Amendment,
what will keep them from ignoring the rest of the rights
listed in the First Amendment.
You know, little things like:
“freedom of speech,
“[freedom] of the press,”
“the right …[to] peaceably …assemble,”
“and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

And if they can make Catholics pay for contraception and abortifacient pills,
what else can they make us pay for?
Direct surgical abortions?
Can they make priests officiate at gay marriages
—or prohibit us from doing any weddings
if we refuse to do “gay weddings”?
You might think it’s a stretch,
but according the reasoning of the Supreme Court,
the constitutional right to contraception
was the basis for both the right to abortion
and the right to sodomy.
Once you ignore the natural rights of man,
and replace them with their opposites,
then anything is possible.

And this new regulation is living proof.

I know some of you may be very angry with me right now,
but I cannot be silence.
As Pope Benedict, again, just this last Thursday, told us:
“…[I]t is imperative
that the entire Catholic community in the United States
come to realize the grave threats
to the Church’s public moral witness
presented by a radical secularism
which finds increasing expression in the political …spheres…
Of particular concern are …attempts being made
to limit …the freedom of religion.….
[and] to deny the right of conscientious objection…”

I am also sure that some of you aren’t agree with me, but at the government.
But at the same time you may feel helpless.

But you can’t think that way.
Because there are many ways we can effect change:
we can exercise our first amendment rights
of free speech to tell to our neighbors
the truth about what’s going on.
And tomorrow, 10s, even 100s of thousands
will gather on the Mall in Washington at the March for Life,
exercising our 1st amendment rights to
“peaceably …assemble, and to petition the Government
for a redress of grievances.”
And in November we can exercise our right to vote
to elect congressmen and senators and a president
who will defend our God given rights.

We can never give up hope.
In today’s first reading we read how even
the depraved ancient city of Nineveh
repented and reformed when confronted by the prophet Jonah.
And as Jesus says elsewhere: “but you have one greater that Jonah here.”

We do have one greater than Jonah: we have Jesus himself.
And by the grace of Jesus Christ our country can change.
And like the apostles Peter, Andrew, John, and James,
Jesus calls out to us today to help him bring that change about.
He says “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
He calls us to join him as he casts his net to draw all hearts and minds
from the dark confusion of the sea of lies,
into the light of His truth.

This week, as we remember Roe/Wade and that dark day exactly 39 years ago
let us also remember that by the grace of Jesus Christ,
oppression and lies can be overcome by truth and faith.
And let us freely accept the call of our Catholic religion,
boldly defending the unborn and their mothers,
and the freedom to worship the God who gives us
the right to life,
and all the other wonderful rights that flow from it.